Eyes, the window of heart

In China, there is a quote "眼睛是心灵之窗", if translate to English, is 'eyes are the window of heart'. I don't whether English has some kind similar quote. Eyes as the window to show people's feeling truly. Eyes does not lie. So, I find out in portrait photo, eyes is very important part. it not only show people's characteristics, also the emotional. A portrait without a pair of vital eyes is failure even how successful of the colour, the background and so on. The eyes are the way to contact with the audience.

The photo above is a black-and- white portrait, I found it in a unknown black-and-white album in internet. The first place attract me in this photo is his big eyes. I not sure the background and the culture of this photo. When I seen his eyes, I feeling helpless. however, there is not tear in his face, the information he send to us using his eyes is 'cry of help'.

one more good photo

Jay Maisel

Jay Maisel is American colour photographer, he like use the natural light. I love this photo because of it looks good. the reflection of the bird and the building is great. and the lighting is also clear. the bird become silhouette. the bird silhouette standing in colourful background with reflection shadow. It makes the photo looks like painting.

   more photo for Jay Maisel

Movement of Hair

 Aperture f: 5.6

Shutter speed: 1/125

IOS: 200

Aperture f: 9.0

Shutter speed: 1/125

IOS: 125

Aperture f: 9

Shutter speed: 1/200

IOS: 125

I always think hair is good material for photography. Those photo took in my friend's studio last two week. The model has long hair that could make different kind of shape. The hair could make elegance movement and emotion. In this three images. The hair movement shows happiness, mystery, and quite.

Story Images

Aperture f: 32

Shutter speed: 1/15

IOS: 100

Aperture f: 32

Shutter speed: 1/15

IOS: 100

In my opinion, a successful photo should has the element of emotion, which mean telling people a story. However, those two photos use a lot photoshop, but I am not going to talk about the photography technique. The emotional of the photo is important. a good can tell people a story. The images above might not good photos with great photography technique, but with good emotion. Good emotional could attract people. For example, the images above have strong emotion, and show people in the photo have story. It can give many different name for those image. destroy, sadness, lonely, missing, violent, and so on.

My Favourite Colours

Aperture f: 3.5

Shutter speed: 1/320

IOS: 400

Aperture f: 4

Shutter speed: 1/60

IOS: 200

This two are shadow depth of field. In the first image, the main object is the middle line postcard. It is easy to see the area around the middle is fuzzy. The second image is two drink. The one close the camera is more clear than the one in the back. the colour in this image is good. green and blue, which are my favourite colours. those two colour symbols nature and relax. they are cool colours, it is best colours for people who are love summer. because when people see green and blue, they would clam down and feel peaceful. 

Impression of black and white photography

All photography was originally monochrome, most of these photographs were black-and-white. Most forms of visual technology start out in black and white, then slowly evolve into color as technology progresses. Even after color film was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades, due to its lower cost and its “classic” photographic look.

black-and-white photography could shows the lighting and the shadow clearly, it is very emotional and attract people's eyes. 

Beach Photo Photoshop Editing

                                                ISO: 100 AV: +2.7  f: 5 SHUTTER: 1/1000
                                                            This image looks a little dark

This is the best beach photo I have took, but when I put it in the laptop, the lighting is bad. It looks a little dark, so, I put in the photoshop to make it better. I just change a brightness and contract because of this is good picture except the lighting.

Mark Mawson

Mark Mawson is an international award-winning photographer with 21 years of experience in capturing a full spectrum of people and places and specialises in shooting people underwater. His Aqueous work has become very collectable and his recent series 'Aqueous Fluoreau' went viral at the beginning of 2012. He is represented by several galleries and his personal work is in many private collections around the world.

Those images Mawson took were shock for me, and it is beautiful. the colour is wonderful. And the background is good, it let the subject come out. The water colour looks like dancing. Wish I can finger out how Mawson took this picture.

I hope one day I can take some successful photos as Mark Mawson, now, I still have problem with photography. I still have many skills need to learn. 

Reflection

Aperture f: 5

Shutter speed: 1/16

IOS: 6400

I took this photo in night, this is a bar reflection in the swimming pool. So, it can see in the photo, there is almost half part is the swimming pool tiles - the top part. However, this photo is not successful, it give me some idea about reflection. Taking photo in night is very difficult, especially, does not has filters. But this is the good start, and it's fun. the water is good as mirror for photography.

Photoshop Editing

    Aperture f: 29                                                     

Shutter speed: 1/6                                             

IOS: 3200  

I choose the image, which I took for last week project because this is one of my favourite shoe. As we see the left image, this image is great depth of field. we can see the background very clearly, and the lighting in this image is dark, probably for the reason of I took it indoor. In the right image, I used the levels and turn the input levels to 0-1-160 that make the dark part be more darkness and the part of light-receiving turn lighter. but the darkness part does not turn dark enough. Then, I use the burn tool to make the dark part turn more darkness. Almost cannot denitrify there is a shoe case and some shoes in the background. Finally, I select the background part and the front of the floor by using the selection tool, and then I used caussian blur. the background become fuzzy~ then the whole image turn to shallow depth of field. By the way, this is my first time to use photoshop to editing a whole picture, photoshop is very hard for me, but I learned a lot in this project.

Silence

just a small table light in my work dest, however, the darkness part does not strongly, easy to make a distinction for the light part and the shadow part, the hair give some shadow fore the face. and the background show the human figure show in the right.

Aperture f: 3.5

Shutter speed: 1/60

IOS: 800

The emotion in those images are very strong - Silence. The red band come out very strongly of the black clothes and black hair. also, red is the colour of the lip. A small tear in left eye show also shows the emotion. 

Studio Lighting

Aperture f: 32

Shutter speed: 1/15

IOS: 100

Our main inspiration for this photoshoot was Nicolas Guerin who does a lot of dramatic black and white photography in front of plain, dark backdrops such as the photo you see on the left. We wanted to create a disturbing mood in the our photo and we achieved this through the lighting, the model’s expression, and the composition.

The specs for this photo are as follows: Manual mode, ISO 100, shutter speed 1/15, aperture f.32, manual white balance. We used one strobe light directly in front of the subject and used the blackboard in the classroom as the background. Sussica was the main model and Kewin was the hand model. I helped with adjusting the lights while Jimmy took the photo and made edits to the photo.

The process Jimmy took to editing the photo started with changing the mode to greyscale, adjusting the brightness/contrast, fixing the skin using the spot healing brush tool, and then adding an extra layer in order to add a dark vignette around the photo.

FIRE & ICE PHOTOSHOP

In this project, Fire & Ice, I choose the image with blue lip because colour blue represent cool, ice, and cold. And select a two different movement fire images.  I want to combine those images to show the fire come out from the blue mouth. I put three images in different layer. the bigger one fire in the layer 1, the blue mouth in the layer 2, then I used quick selection tool to remove the black area in the middle of the mouth. after, add the small fire image in layer 3 and remove the black background. for the reason of the colour of the small fire is different with the big fire, I select the brightness and contrast to make their colour become same. finally, I used eraser and set opacity in 50% to fix some outline and I get what I want. the fire comes out from the blue mouth.

stillness again

 I looked back the pictures I took in Cuba, I found out I took many stillness photos. I do not like take photo by a normal pose. I like to ask my friends make some fun. such as I would call their name suddenly when they walking. While they turn back to look at me, then, I take the photo. those kink of images are natural and beautiful.

Motion & Stillness

Aperture f: 36                             Aperture: 3.5           

Shutter speed: 2.0                       Shutter speed: 1/1000                      

IOS: 100                                     ISO: 100

This project is about the shutter speed. I like take photo with jumping pose, so, I decide myself to be the model in this project. In the left photo, I took this photo around 6 pm, it can see the lighting is more weaker second image. I stop F at 36, shutter 2", and ISO 100. The waves turning softy. But it is hard to make the colour better without filter. The colour of sky and the sea are not very clearly.

The second image is stillness, don't doubt, its me. I set up the tripod and the camera stutter speed to 1/1000, self-timer 2 second, ISO 100 (because the sun was very strong), and f/ 3.5 in the beach with self-timer 2 second. and that run in front of the camera and jump. I love the background, the sea level and the beach level end together toward to the sailboat. The shadow of the person also shows the action.

since the image of left above does not very motion and blur

so, I took more pictures about motion after this project.

Aperture f: 13                                   

Shutter speed: 15                           

IOS: 100   

Aperture f: 22                                 

Shutter speed: 0.8                           

IOS: 6400   

Depth of Field

Aperture f: 4.5                                                      Aperture f: 22

Shutter speed: 1/13                                               Shutter speed: 0.4

IOS: 640                                                               ISO: 6400

The project, depth of field is so funny. The result of shallow depth of field is one of my favourite. For the photo with a shallow depth of field, I used a 50mm lens with an shutter speed stop in 0”5, the aperture stop in 4.5 and the ISO 400 to focus on the subject, which is the shoes with red bow, the shoe in the front are the main object, and the background is turn fuzzy.
I used 50mm lens again and select the aperture in 28 for the second photo, great depth of field. The quilt is my second photo’s subject. The reason why I chose the quilt to be my subject because the pattern is very beautiful and I think if I can took the photo clearly with my quilt, it would be great and that’s mean I already learned great depth of field.

 Aperture f: 4.0                                                     

Shutter speed: 1/50                                             

IOS: 640  

Aperture f: 25                                                     

Shutter speed: 1/8                                             

IOS: 3200  

MOODY FRUITS

Aperture f: 2.7

Shutter speed: 1/400

IOS: 80

I shoot this picture around 3 to 4 o’clock in the afternoon,  because I have noticed around 3 o’clock every afternoon, the visible sunlight will be project in my bedroom from the windows, probably  it is sunset. i choose oranges because I have a box orange in my home. I tried many different colour background, but finally, I choose my red square table. the reason why I choose this red table because I want the orange and the background mix together. I know colour red and orange are very close, but I mean to do it, because I want to use light to distinguish them. As we see the picture, it is work! The hight in the oranges are very clear, hard, and strong. but the light in the red table is very soft. The avocado, which behind the orange in the dark shadow looks like orange because the texture is similar with the oranges.

The project called MOODY FRUITS. there are many line shadow in the picture, it include a lot emotion.  I think this picture has lots story to tell, I can say few title, which are match the picture, such as,  I (AVOCADO) WANT TO BE A ORANGE, BULLY, LONELY, and so on.

Aperture f: 2.7

Shutter speed: 1/60

IOS: 100

INSPIRATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER (Sue Flood)

REFERENCE: www.sueflood.com

PHOTOGRAPH REFERENCE：http://www.sueflood.com/galleries/Polarscenics/content/000204_large.html
DDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPH REFERENCE:http://www.sueflood.com/galleries/SueFavourite/content/002826_large.html

Arctic icescape in March, Lancaster Sound, Baffin Island, Canada.

SYNOPSIS:
Sue Flood is an award-winning professional wildlife photographer and author who has been working in the Polar regions since 1998, although her work increasingly takes her to warmer climes to thaw out. Sue spent 11 years with the world-renowned BBC Natural History Unit, fulfilling a lifelong ambition to work with her childhood hero Sir David Attenborough. Sue is passionate about the use of still and moving images to engage people’s interest in the natural world and regularly lectures on her experiences of wildlife film-making and photography to expedition travel companies, corporate organisations, as well as schools and universities, with the aim of inspiring people to protect the planet. Sue also enjoys guiding for tailor-made wildlife photography trips, including the Antarctic, Costa Rica, Rwanda and Zambia. Sue was delighted to be recognised in this year’s International Photographer of the Year competition, with awards for her book “Cold Places” in the nature book category, and also as runner up for the Travel and Tourism category.
This photograph comes from a series named ‘ cold places’, and the frame of it is main object in the middle, which is ice. The overall lighting style is hard but within little soft. The ice that in front of the photograph is belongs to the hard part. The background part is soft. Sunlight is the only light source in this photograph. The sunlight is come from down of the right side, which is a soft direct lighting that make the shadow unclear. The light make the photograph divides to two parts but looks the background and the main object is mix. And this picture give the feeling is cool. The cool feeling does not come from the main object, but also effected by the light, such as the dark shadow in the right part on the bottom. It is not hard to find out the photographer’s vantage point in this image was standing, because the photograph seem as eye-level. In this photograph, affection is Sue Flood wants the readers experience from her work, because in I did not find any special meaning, but learn many angel, lighting, and structure in this picture. The photographer took many different shape of ice. In this photograph, there are two kinds of shape of the ice, one is icicle, and another is lump.

Emperor penguin viewed through hole in iceberg at Snow Hill Island rookery, Antarctica. November 2008.